Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah

With its shoreline blockaded by the Union navy, the Confederacy had but little choice to enlist the use of commercial raiders to harass the menacing ships of the North. One of these raiders, the 1,600-ton steam cruiser C.S.S. Shenandoah, was commissioned to carry out such a mission after departing from Liverpool, England in October 1864. James Waddell captained the ship through perilous ice flows, a near mutiny, and 58,000 thousand miles of ocean only to discover that he and his crew were no longer considered enemy combatants by war's end; still adrift at sea, they were now seen as pirates in the eyes of the victorious North.

review of Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah, by Chaffin, Tom, Civil War Book Review, (Spring 2006).